Chapter 30
Inibble on the end of my pen as I scour my mind for more pros. They already greatly outweigh the cons, yet I feel like I need a few more solid reasons to betray Nordin’s and Mor’s trust.
“What are you writing?” Nordin’s voice makes me chip the end of my pen.
What if it was a tooth? I slip my tongue over the edges of enamel, relieved when I find no fissure.
He lingers in my doorway, leaning against one wall, arms crossed as though he’s been standing there for a while.
My face fills with such guilt that his lips curl.
As he steps down and advances toward me, he asks, “Why don’t you tell me how much you like me out loud instead of journaling about it?”
I snatch my list off the table and ball it up, managing to toss it into the fire a heartbeat before his arms lace around my middle. What I don’t manage to do is grab my gloves and put them on. Even though he swears he doesn’t mind the ghastly sight, I do.
He gathers me against him, pinning my rigid spine to his hard front. “How was your day?”
I twist my head to peer up at him. “Long without you. And yours?”
“Endless without you.” He leans over. Right before he erases the distance between our lips, he murmurs, “I locked the door.”
My heart stammers with a mix of anxiety and anticipation. “What terrible things are you planning to do to me?”
His smirk is slow and full of heat, a promise that I’ll enjoy what’s coming. “The correct adjective would be tantalizing.”
As he seals his mouth over mine, I forget all about Kjell. All about my tenuous place in the pack. All about the rest of the world.
My heartbeats hasten, each stroke so close to the next that if someone were to sketch its rhythm, it would resemble a straight line.
I don’t breathe once as Nordin reveres my mouth, caressing all its dark corners with his tongue. Each time he kisses me, it feels like a first, like we’re diving into one another’s souls and exploring their hidden depths. May his ardor for me never fade, for I know mine never will.
“Breathe,” he murmurs as he pulls back.
A startled chuckle whooshes past my swollen lips, which admittedly sounds more like a strangled wheeze. After two deep pulls of air, I turn in his arms, lock my fingers around his nape, and tug his face down to mine.
The kiss turns into something so fierce that it’s Nordin who has to break away to breathe. His harsh pants bluster against my tipped face, hot like the skin at his nape, like the gleam of his irises.
His palms whisper over my ass, barely creasing the wool at first. The shivers it elicits in me embolden his touch, leading his long fingers to curve and flex over the pert globes of flesh.
I nip his lower lip with my teeth before he chases my mouth and penetrates it anew. As our tongues clash, he hoists me up, pressing me against every ridge and bulge. I bind my ankles behind his ass, then roll my hips. He emits a sound between a hiss and a groan that hits me straight in the core.
I do it again, causing his smooth rhythm to fracture. He rips his mouth from mine and presses our foreheads together, panting hard.
“Will the Gods send us to Jotunheimr for this?” I murmur.
“Your soul’s far too pure for that realm.”
“And yours is not?”
His breathing turns so choppy that his next words are barely louder than a gentle draft of summer wind. “Mine’s been tainted for well over a year.”
I lean back. “Over a year? What happened that corrupted your soul then?”
His lids fall to half-mast over the blazing pools of ink. “I noticed you were no longer a child.”
“If only I’d known…”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” he murmurs at the same time as knocks detonate against my door.
I jump, which leads my core to bump against his stiff shaft. Nordin’s fingers clench. All of him clenches, and he buries his face into my neck to smother his curse.
“Zas, get your ass out here! It’s the first crescent without a snowstorm, and you know what that means,” Saga singsongs.
Nordin snaps his head straight, growling a rough, “No.”
His reaction tugs a soft laugh from me. I unbind my legs and ease down the pillar of his body. “Come with me.”
His eyes flash with discontent. “I’m too old for these games.”
I arch an eyebrow. “You’d prefer others chase me?”
“I prefer Crescent Quests to be abolished,” he grumbles.
Forget knocking. Saga is pounding now. “Come on, babe! Let’s go.”
“Who knows my scent better than you do, now?” I purr, before shouting, “Coming!”
He works his jaw from side to side, still grumbling.
His molars are wedged so tightly that the sound that emerges is unintelligible.
Yet I grasp it loud and clear: He really doesn’t want me participating in the game the younger, unmated wolves play when the moon shines just enough for humans to navigate the terrain, but not brightly enough to illuminate the whole land.
“Meet me in the clearing.” I roll up onto my toes to steal another kiss before pulling on my gloves.
“Your coat.”
“Will keep me too warm.” I start to slide the bolt when I remember to relocate my newest weapon and its accompanying snuffbox of thorns from my coat to my dress pocket.
I’m about to tell Nordin about it and demonstrate its niftiness when Saga’s banging intensifies.
I crack the door open and slip out into the fading light. “By the Gods, you’re impatient.”
“Nice of you to finally join me. What took you so…?” A flare of her nostrils later, and her eyebrows flatten.
I take it she’s caught her brother’s scent. Thankfully, she doesn’t say anything about it, but that has more to do with the shifters lurking up the road, cutting dark figures against the setting sun.
Saga drops an arm around my shoulders and pulls me close.
“Just trying to replace some of his scent before he gets caught. What were you doing in— Actually, don’t tell me.
It’s best I don’t know.” After a beat, she adds, “Just don’t go all the way.
Everything else, he could probably argue his way out of, but not S. E. X.”
“Did you really just spell it out?”
“Got to spell things out with you.”
I arch a brow.
“All right… I don’t know why I spelled it out.” After a beat, she adds, “Will he be joining us?”
“Probably not. He wasn’t happy I was participating.”
“Ha. No shit.” Under her breath, she murmurs, “He doesn’t want other men chasing you.”
We finally catch up to the others, who are voting on who will play prey tonight. Well, aside from me and the handful of human participants, whose sense of smell is too underdeveloped to do much chasing.
If this game weren’t played after sunset, under a moon as thin as a fingernail clipping, I’d volunteer to be a hunter, since my tracking skills—thanks to Saga and Nordin’s training—are better than those of most shifters in skin. However, this hide-and-seek always unfolds in the dead of night.
When we reach the clearing, two dozen people are already gathered around a bonfire. I’m the last “prey” to join the lot.
I’m handed a ribbon that I have to rub around my neck to gather my scent. As I wonder whether it will be muddled with Nordin’s tonight, I glance around the bunched hunters, spotting many familiar faces. One gives me pause—Tyron’s.
I haven’t seen him since before Kjell bit him. He seems a tad pale and a lot jittery. His lids and jaw keep twitching as though the vampyr bite has done a number on his nervous system. I want to ask Saga if it did, but she’s busy sniffing Tessja’s ribbon to soak up the human’s scent.
For most, this hunt is a game where the prize is outsmarting the others and being elected best tracker. For some, it’s more.
As I observe Saga’s sparkling irises and the long look she gives the goatherd’s wide mouth, I think it might be more.
It’s a shame it didn’t work out with Vanoo, but their attempt at intimacy had apparently been awkward. Saga had described it as sleeping with her own brother before realizing how vile that sounded and making a grimace that lasted longer than her relationship with Nordin’s best friend.
The ribbon slips from my fingers as someone takes it from me. I look up, hoping I’ll find Nordin, but the eyes boring down on me are the color of the abounding firs.
“How have you been?” I ask Tyron.
He jerks his head to the side. “Like you care.”
At first, I recoil, but then I square my shoulders. “We were told not to bother you during your convalescence.”
“By whom? Our Alpha’s great and almighty son? I thought we were friends, Zas, but my friends came to visit. You weren’t among them, so…” He attempts a shrug, but the motion is sharp, aggressive like his tone. “So I understood we weren’t friends.”
Leif pops up beside us, slings an arm around his buddy’s shoulders, then snatches the ribbon from Tyron’s white-knuckled grip,
He hands it back to me. “Let’s go to the steam hut, man. I don’t feel like playing Crescent Quest tonight.”
“Well, I feel like it.” Tyron shoves Leif’s arm off him.
“Ty…” Leif starts.
“Fucking lay off me, man.” Tyron starts to back away but halts to say, “Better hide well, Zas, because I plan on hunting you tonight.” And then he flings me a wink that chills me to the marrow.
“I’ll keep him in check,” Leif promises, going after him.
As I roll the small weapon in my pocket, I scan the sea of faces for the one person I fully trust to curb Tyron’s impulsiveness.
Nordin hasn’t come.